As described in the aforementioned copending application, conveyor systems having overhead rails upon which carriers can roll and are suspended, may be used in a wide variety of applications.
For example, they can be employed as movable hangers for garments in various stages of manufacture in a garment-manufacturing plant. They may carry baskets, buckets or other receptacles for moving finished and semifinished products about factories and other manufacturing plants, or for delivering raw materials or products to various stations for further manufacturing steps, packaging, sorting and storage. They can be employed wherever redistribution of articles is required, e.g. in postal sorting installations and warehouses, either for collection and delivery of the articles or simply as a system for depositing articles at selected locations.
Finally they may be used for a variety of purposes in large installations such as health institutions for the movement of goods, equipment and supplies, or even for the movement of papers, documents and other information carriers.
The conveyor system with which the present invention is concerned comprises a number of such carriers which can have wheels or trolleys riding upon the rail which can form an endless track from which branches may be diverted so that a carrier may be moved from the main path, diverted to a particular station and/or replaced on the main track.
In nonpowered operation, the carrier is not entrained by a drive and can roll freely along the track, either under gravitational or manual control, or even can be left stationary.
For powered operation, the carrier can be coupled to a drive, e.g. a drive chain which is disposed above and runs parallel with the support track.
In the latter case, the drive chain can be formed at spaced-apart locations with coupling devices adapted to releasably engage a carrier for entrainment of the latter along the track. As is described in the aforementioned copending application, the coupling device can comprise a pair of jaws which are swingable in directions transverse to the direction of displacement of the carrier about a pivot axis running parallel to this direction. At each of the jaws (in the direction of displacement) camming ramps are provided for enabling the spreading of the jaws (and hence release of the carrier) or the opposite movement of the jaws to engage and entrain a respective carrier.
Along the length of the two jaws, there is provided a pocket into which a lug or other entrainer of the carrier engages for such entrainment.
While the system of this application has been found to constitute a major advance and simplification in the conveyor field described, it has been found that some degree of uncontrolled movement of the jaws may be present to result in undesired release of the carrier, especially when strong lateral forces cause one of the jaws to swing away from the other.
Furthermore, operation of the coupling device has been found to be relatively noisy, i.e. the coupling and decoupling operations are carried out only with significant generation of sounds constituting an annoyance to the operators and environment.